Editor's Note: Listen to the full interview in our player above, and join the conversation in our comments section below.

(CNN) - You wouldn't think Ted Turner needs an introduction. Especially to a CNN audience. But he does.

Despite Ted Turner’s fame and wealth and impact, we know so little about him.

Until now, for example, we've never seen the heartbreaking letter his father sent him when Ted was studying at Brown:

“My dear son, I am appalled, even horrified, that you have adopted Classics as a major. As a matter of fact, I almost puked on the way home today. I think you are rapidly becoming a jackass, and the sooner you get out of that filthy atmosphere, the better it will suit me…”

Soon after that letter, Turner’s father forced him to withdraw from Brown.

Ted came home to help run his father’s advertising billboard business.

Ted did not want to leave Brown.

And he did not want to leave home for a string of boarding schools when he was only 4 years old. His father made him.

When Ted was just 24, his father committed suicide.

How could a boy, so rejected, suffering such a loss, find the inner strength to accomplish what he has accomplished?

Turner, the Classics lover, gave us a window on where he finds his inspiration. It’s from an epic poem called “Horatius at the Bridge.” [Hear Ted recite part of the poem at 9:00 in]

“Horatius at the Bridge” is set in ancient Rome. Invaders are approaching the city.

There is only one bridge across The Tiber. The Romans are retreating to the heart of their city, leaving the bridge standing — available for the enemy to swiftly advance.

Horatius, the solider, stands alone on the Roman side of the bridge, holding off the enemy.

When his fellow Romans see Horatius’ courage, they begin to support him, a trickle at first, then more, until there are enough of them to destroy the bridge and cut off the enemy’s access to their city.

Until now, we didn't know Ted Turner had committed the epic poem to memory. If you listen to the podcast attached to this story you will hear Ted recite it — no notes — with a spark and understanding that comes from experience.

“Has there been a time when you felt like Horatius?” I asked him.

One word response. “CNN.”

But we did not invite Ted Turner to the house he built for an interview about CNN, an invitation we are honored he accepted.

The Ted Turner of CNN needs no introduction.

This story is about Ted Turner, the Eco-Capitalist. It's about the man who has demonstrated how to protect a large biodiversity of species on vast land holdings - and make enough money from that land to sustain his environmental conservation quest.

That Ted Turner needs an introduction.

That’s the Ted Turner who spent millions in the early phases of a struggling media business to support the work of the great oceanographer Jacques Cousteau when Cousteau and his son Philippe Sr. were determined to document the richness of the ocean that humans had never seen before.

That’s the Ted Turner who, inspired by the elder Cousteau, took his battle for environmental conservation to the West, accumulating the second largest private land holdings in America as a home for giant herds of the species he became fascinated with as a child: the Bison.

“Last Stand” is written by Ted’s fellow Montanan, Todd Wilkinson, a veteran journalist who specializes in the environment and joins us in this podcast.

Wilkinson has been covering the Ted Turner of the West since Turner bought his first ranch and started tearing down interior fences to give safe haven to species that other ranchers had fenced out as intruders on their bottom line.

Turner welcomed prairie dogs to his land — and expanded their population after decades in which his fellow ranchers had systematically exterminated them because they competed for resources with money-making cattle.

Turner and his team of land management biologists saw the prairie dogs for the unique value they provided — as a keystone species that is a crucial source of food for many other species. When prairie dogs are exterminated, other species starve to death.

The Eco-Capitalist’s new neighbors in the West didn’t like what they were seeing and hearing from Turner, the novice rancher, in the early 80s. That’s when Todd Wilkinson began reporting on him. It has taken a long time for Wilkinson to really get to know Ted Turner, and to witness the results of Turner’s definition of the bottom line.

With Ted Turner, there is not a single bottom line.

There’s a triple bottom line.

What’s a triple bottom line? How can you make a profit from the land and protect it at the same time?

soundoff(44 Responses)

He has provided me access, through his property, to some of the most gorgeous mountain hiking I have ever seen. Driving through that property I have seen herds of 100+ buffalo. And I have eaten buffalo meat at his restaurant in Bozeman, MT. Synthesize these facts as you will. On the scale of to true-born Montanan to Cali-born profiteer, he seems to be one of the good guys. In any case, God bless the Big Sky.

I think Ted Turner has done some really fine things with his fortune and we should all appreciate his interest in the environment since it is all we have. It sounds like he had much to overcome but he did, and I'm happy for him.

Ted Turner thinks that world population should be reduced by 95% and everyone should only have one child. He also says it's good that US soldiers are committing suicide.

Of course he continues to prolong his own existence instead of offing himself to reduce the population of the earth. Apparently suicide is not good for Ted. He also has five children. He's a crazy jackass 1%-er masquerading as an enlightened advocate of the 99%.

For all you naive haters: Ted is 74 so he sits a horse pretty darn well and he divorced Hanoi Jane in 2001 so that baggage is long gone. He has locked away vast areas of land so that developers and the government will never be able to touch them. He is doing good things with his money and his life. So if you don't like him then why are you reading the article in the first place? Hate or jealousy maybe.

What does being an atheist have to do with any of this? You're beliefs shouldn't define you as a person, and if you really think that then you have some re-evaluating to do yourself. If he is an atheist then he is treating the earth how any god would want better than most devout believers.

Ted Turner said the 9/11 highjacking murderers were "brave". So, in his little mind, attacking unsuspecting civilians after you have had some limited military training is "brave".

Ted and his ex-beech Hanoi Jane can both kiss my azz the next time I have the runs . I don't know why they divorced because they are both just a couple of lib phk-offs and I'd like to tell him that to his sorry face.

Sure Ted has his faults and gets some poor advice, but two things he did right are at the top of my list: 1. he bagged one of the hottest women in Hollywood who had a rich, famous family – you guys are just jealous and 2. he put together one of the world's best and most difficult yacht racing programs – the America's Cup for you ignorant cowboys – and won it driving his own boat. If any of you wannabes can top that – step right up with the proof. TED TURNER is an AMERICAN HERO

1. My wife is far better looking than "Hanoi Jane".
2. Who gives a crap about a boat racing team?
3. You left out three: He said the murdering 9/11 highjackers were "brave". I guess it is a reflection about how he conducts business, i.e., attack unsuspecting people with unbelievable cruelty.

The only thing that anyone to the right of Stalin cares about is who he's married to, that being Jane Fonda. Anything else is just drivel. Trivia for the weak-minded and weak-kneed.

Prairie dogs, Ted, are for shooting, and we both know it. You just don't let your lefty pals know that you love making the little critters go cartwheeling from 400 yards away, dancing to the tune of a .22-250 slug. Reason enough to allow them to breed all over your ranch. I would too...

What about the Ted Turner that was once an avid conservative, though some what of a bigoted one when he referred to Californians "as a bunch of left wing nuts and fruitcakes" in an interview with American Opinion Magazine in the early 1980's. I guess with enough time and money, you can transform yourself and make people believe you're anythng you want them to believe.

Your comment is an indication of how far removed you are from God's injunction to make a garden of this planet.

And your failure to respect a man such as Ted Turner is simply a reflection of the deep hole that your soul is stuck in. I hope that someday you'll become a real, contributing human being.....it'll be good for the rest of us but immeasurably better for you.

Ted Turner: Environmentalist.....(and largest private land owner in the nation)

"While a timber-cutting operation was under way on one of his [Turner's] ranches in 1998, members of the radical environmental group Earth First! instead protested timber cutting on a nearby ranch owned by Zachary Taylor, said private investigator Barry R. Clausen, who spent a year undercover at EarthFirst.

He asked a protester why the group did not include take on [sic] Mr. Turner, Mr. Clausen said, and was told: “We cannot. That’s where our money comes from.”

“Ted Turner has canned hunts where you can shoot a buffalo … and drilling … in New Mexico and clear-cutting trees and he never gets protested. And when you ask why, it’s because he is one of the biggest contributors to extremist groups,” Mr. Clausen said."